


The power is yours.

by Kittenskysong



Series: Firesong [2]
Category: Captain Planet and the Planeteers, Mutant X
Genre: Rape Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:47:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21995479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kittenskysong/pseuds/Kittenskysong
Summary: Six months after the events in Africa, Wheeler has not told his friends what Plunder did to him. When they are sent to solve a mystery they meet a group of new mutants and the truth comes out.
Series: Firesong [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1565833
Kudos: 1





	The power is yours.

During the day, Wheeler could almost forget the night he had spent as Looten Plunder’s captive. In the light of day, it was as if nothing had happened. At night, though, it was a different matter. He could feel the man’s hands on him, touching him, making Wheeler’s body betray him.

Wheeler woke with a gasp, clamping his hands to his mouth to muffle the scream that threatened to come. It would have broken loose and woke Kwame and Ma-ti. Sweat ran down Wheeler in rivers and his breath came rapidly as if he had run a marathon. A low growl rumbled in his throat and he shoved it back. Just because the others knew he was a New Mutant was no reason to get careless.

Wheeler lay back on his hammock and closed his eyes, trying to go back to sleep. The nightmare he had been having rose back up and he bit back a groan. Finally, he slid out of the hammock, grabbed a t-shirt and headed for the door.

“Wheeler?” a sleepy voice came just as Wheeler was going to push back the curtain that served the small hut as a door. Wheeler turned and looked at Ma-ti. “Are you alright?”

“I can’t sleep,” Wheeler whispered back. “Going for a run.”

Ma-ti sat up reaching for his own shirt. “I’ll come with you.”

Wheeler let his feral face out, going golden and catlike. His teeth bared in almost a snarl and then he put it back under a mask of normalcy. “You wouldn’t be able to keep up. I need to wear myself out so I can get some sleep. A feral with sleep exhaustion isn’t pretty.”

Ma-ti set his shirt back down and lifted his ring up. Wheeler glared at him and with a sigh, the smaller boy lowered his hand. “I wish you would talk to us instead of running away,” Ma-ti muttered. Wheeler regarded him for a moment, wondering once again how much the others knew.

Ma-ti had contacted Wheeler right after Plunder had finished with him. He had, in fact, been in Wheeler’s mind while he was still reeling from the vile act. He was still not sure how much Ma-ti had seen before Wheeler had shoved him out.

“I’m not... I can’t. Okay, Ma-ti? I can't." Wheeler slipped out of the hut and took off running. Tears streamed down his face as he ran. He was trying to get away from the nightmares that plagued him.

The next morning, Gaia sent them on a mission. There was a mysterious outbreak of forest fires in the Uintah forest of Utah. Wheeler fell asleep in the Geo-cruiser on the way, and the others let him sleep. “He was up half the night,” Kwame muttered, looking at the sleeping redhead.

“We woke you? I didn’t think we were that loud,” Ma-ti frowned as he spoke and Kwame laughed.

“The hut isn’t that big, Ma-ti,” he shook his head and moved to sit near Linka, who was flying the craft. “Has he said anything to any of you about what happened?”

“Nyet.” Linka always slid back into her native language when she was upset. She clenched her hands around the wheel so hard that her knuckles turned white.

“Not a thing,” Gi responded softy. They all glanced at Ma-ti who shrugged. “Do you know something?” Gi asked him. Ma-ti shook his head for a moment. He thought the Asian girl would press, but to his relief she didn’t.

The truth was Ma-ti didn’t know anything, not really. He knew Plunder had done something awful to Wheeler, but he didn’t know what. Wheeler had shut him out that day so fast Ma-ti had only gotten a vague sense of Wheeler’s emotional state.

“He has gotten good at blocking me,” he muttered, aware of the scrutiny of the others. “I would tell you If I knew!”

“Alright,” Gi said slowly.

They landed twenty minutes later and reluctantly woke Wheeler up. It wasn’t just that they would have liked to let him sleep. It was he tended to react badly to anyone waking him these days. Fortunately, Wheeler wasn’t very coordinated when he first woke up.

The Planeteers split up, each examining one of the many burn marks that seemed to have appeared in the forest overnight. Wheeler crouched beside one and brought some of the ashes to his nose sniffing. “That’s odd.”

“What’s odd?” Linka asked. She moved from the burn spot she had been checking to regard the redhead.

“The fire made perfect round spots.” Wheeler waved his ring in her direction. “It just doesn’t do that. Fire tends to go everywhere, trust me on this. But this... it’s like it burned a circle then jumped to make another one.”

He picked up another bit of the scorched earth and sniffed it wrinkling his nose. “And it burned HOT, too. I mean, there’s literally nothing left in these spots but ash. The trees here wouldn’t have burned to nothing overnight if it were just a forest fire.”

“What do you smell?” Kwame asked, joining the two of them. The Planeteers had come to realize that Wheeler’s feral abilities gave him a sense of smell none of them could match.

“Nothing, that’s what’s odd. No accelerant was used.” Wheeler sighed. “I hate to say it. I mean, I really do. I try to avoid other New Mutants as much as possible.”

“Why?” Linka blurted.

“Less tempting to show off,” Wheeler said with a shrug. “There’s this group that wants to lock us all up, the GSA. I told you about them. It’s safer not to hang out with other New Mutants, less noticeable. I don’t know if they know about me yet, and I’d kind of want to keep it that way. Plunder, Blight, and Skumm knowing is bad enough.”

He sniffed the air then frowned. “Fuck.”

That was another thing that had changed; Wheeler swore more since the events in Africa. The others looked at each other, but it was Linka who finally asked: “Now what?”

Wheeler leaped to his feet in a graceful move the others had all seen before. They had believed Wheeler’s excuses of gymnastic classes before learning of his being a New Mutant. Now they knew it was just a thing that came naturally to him, like his ability to smell things better than the others.

“There’s a feral here and she isn’t happy.” Wheeler responded without looking at Linka. All of his focus was on the forest. If he had actually been a cat, his friends would have seen all his fur go up. As it was, he was clearly ready to spring on whatever came out of the forest.

Shalimar Fox was not in a good mood. She was in the middle of the forest surrounded by the smell of fire. If there was one thing she hated, it was fire. She had never been fully able to overcome her fear of it. She had tried, heaven knew. She had tried, but to no avail.

Mutant X had come to the forest to try to find out if there was a New Mutant behind the strange forest burns in Utah. The five of them had split up, planning on meeting back at the small base camp they had set up. All the while, they were using their communicators to stay in touch with each other.

Shalimar heard the Planeteers before she saw them and even before she smelled hem. The wind was blowing their scent away from her. She approached slowly, taking great care not to be heard. When the smell of the five came to her, she stopped.

One of these kids was a Feral. She could smell the animal part of his genetic makeup. She could also smell his fear. She stepped carefully out into the clearing made by several circles of burned forest and tried for a casual hello.

The five teens looked mildly at her... well, four of them did. The fifth was a red-headed youth snarled at her. The black kid stepped in front of the red-head as casually as stepping in front of a tree. “Wheeler, down,” he looked at Shalimar. “Do not mind our friend. He had a bad experience recently that left him on edge. I am Kwame. This is Gi, Linka, Ma-ti and Wheeler,” he said, indicating the rest of the team.

“Shalimar,” she looked from one to the others frowning at them. “Where are your parents? What are you doing here? This is a dangerous place, you know?”

Instead of the kids answering her, a different male voice cut in. Doctor Adam Kane, the scientist largely responsible for the existence of New Mutants, had managed once again to sneak up without Shalimar noticing him. One of these days, she was going to figure out how he did it. “They aren’t ordinary teenagers. The Planeteers, I believe they call themselves.”

Shalimar jumped and whirled, glaring at him. Which was nothing compared to Wheeler’s response. In one leap, the red-headed teen cleared the distance between him and Adam. He knocked the older man off his feet and landed straddling the other. Wheeler’s snarled hand pulled back to strike.

Shalimar dove to help Adam, only to be bought up short by the smallest kid, Ma-ti. “Heart!” he yelled, his voice in all their heads. “Calm down! It’s okay! Be calm now!”

Wheeler snarled at Adam who had frozen and was trying to make himself seem as small as possible. Whatever this was, the kid was obviously frightened. Shalimar approached slowly and lowered herself to the ground, letting her natural dominance fall back. Her every movement radiated submission, sensing this Wheeler kid was on edge.

The rest of Mutant X burst into the clearing from three different parts of the forest’s edge. Only Shalimar’s "Stay there!" stopped them from using their own abilities to rush to their leader’s aid.

"Shal?" Brennan Mulwray eyed the situation nervously. At his voice, Wheeler's head whipped around and he growled low in his throat. Shalimar shot the elemental mutant a look and Brennan froze in his tracks, swallowing nervously.

Linka moved cautiously to Wheeler's side. "Wheeler? He isn’t Plunder, you know?"

A shudder passed through Wheeler’s lean form and his tension seemed to ease. He slowly stood up and sheepishly reached a hand down to help the older man up. Adam brushed himself off. "I take it this Plunder person is one of those... what are they called, EcoVillans?"

"Who are you, again?" Wheeler asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Mutant X," Adam stated flatly.

Wheeler snorted, turned, and stalked back to he path of burn patches he was examining. He knelt, picked up a handful of ash and let it flow through his fingers. "Someone mentioned Mutant X to me recently. They said that you steal New Mutants. Plunder actually."

"What exactly are Planeteers?" This came from Jesse Killmartin who hadn’t dared moved any closer yet. Kwame looked over at him.

"We protect the Earth. And we educate people on how to take better care of it," Kwame sighed heavily. "Which was hard enough before we knew about New Mutants. Wheeler thinks one of you did this," he said, indicating the path of scorched earth.

"This wasn’t us. None of us have fire powers," Shalimar said and muttered, "Thank god" under her breath. Wheeler looked sidelong at her and rolled his eyes. One of these days he was going to meet another Feral like him. One who wasn’t terrified of fire.

He had been, at one time. When he was a little kid, a fire could send him running in panic to his father and mother. Wheeler's parents had started with tiny flames, teaching him how fire could be controlled and not run wild. Teaching him to temper his fear with understanding and respect.

It had taken years, but by the time Gaia had chosen him to be the Planeteer of fire, Wheeler's fear was largely gone. It had faded completely with Gaia's giving him his ring. Now he was the master of the flame and it would do as he bid.

Emma DeLaura sidled closer to Adam. Her eyes fixed on Wheeler. Adam glanced at her briefly. "Emma? What is it?"

"I don’t know," she muttered. "I can read these kids pretty easy. It’s like they are used to some kind of mind speaking, but Wheeler is partly closed off. There’s a wall there and... part of him is behind it."

They spoke low, but Wheeler turned and looked at them scowling. "Stay out of my head!"

After such a tense start, the two groups tiptoed around each other for a while. Soon, though, they were working together as if they had done it their entire lives. Even Wheeler relaxed after a while, although he was acutely aware of Emma's scrutiny.

The day drifted into afternoon when a whistling sound filled the air. Wheeler looked skyward, frowning. It as extremely high-pitched and set his teeth on edge. Shalimar was snarling, her hands clamped over her ears and even the non-Ferals looked pained.

He saw the ball of fire only because he was looking at the sky. Once again, he dove at Adam Kane. This time, he knocked the man back just before the fireball hit the ground. Everyone ducked and covered as three more came crashing down.

They were hot... hot enough to scald. They scrambled back, trying to get clear. If one of those hit them, they would be in grave danger. Jesse shoved Ma-ti to the ground. He phased them both just in time to keep from getting hit by another fireball. He yanked the wide-eyed boy to his feet and dragged him to the others.

"We are so screwed!" Emma yelled.

They couldn’t tell where the fireballs were coming from. The only indication of where they were was the whistling sound. They were out of their element and Kwame decided they needed superhero help and fast. "Teamwork’s what we need. Let our powers combine! Earth!"

Wheeler bit back a groan as he lifted his ring to the sky. "Fire!" Everyone heard the reluctance in his voice, but there wasn’t any time to comment on it.

Linka went next. "Wind!" Her accent turned the W into a soft V sound.

Gi followed with "Water!"

Ma-ti ducked round Jesse to call out, "Heart!"

Five lines of light joined up in the sky, swirling around each other and a voice boomed out of them: "By your powers combined, I am Captain Planet."

The teens cheered. Well, four of them did. Wheeler just scowled. The adults were slightly awed as the blue-skinned superhero landed in front of them and looked up.

He blew on a fireball and it fell harmlessly on the ground, now a ball of snow. Cap leaped into the air and flew off. The fireballs stopped a few seconds later and they relaxed slightly.

When Captain Planet returned, he set someone on the ground in front of the assembled group. To everyone’s shock, it was a teenage girl. She cringed down at the sight of the glaring figures around her and burst out with, "I didn’t mean it!"

"Didn’t mean it?" Linka snapped, "Do you have an idea how much damage you caused? Look at this place!"

"She can’t control it," Cap said softly. "That’s why she came here. So she wouldn’t hurt any people." 

The girl looked up wiping her eyes. "It just happens when I try sleeping. I try to stay awake but..." she trailed off helplessly.

Adam knelt in front of her. "What’s your name?"

"Julia Mitchell." She looked down as she spoke, hiding her face from those around her.

Adam reached down and putting a hand on her shoulder spoke softly. "It’s alright. There are techniques you can use to help you control it. I know several people in the underground who can help. You’re safe, Julia."

Cap glanced over at the Planeteers and said, "If that’s all, I will take my leave."

Wheeler snorted, turning away and stalking off into the forest. Cap sighed heavily. The last few times the Planeteers had summoned him, Wheeler had been cold, hostile even. Cap couldn’t figure it out. Usually, Wheeler was the most easy-going of the kids, one who never let anyone or anything get to him. "He’s still mad at me?"

"Why would he be?" Shalimar asked curiously.

"About six months ago, Wheeler was kidnapped by one of our enemies who put a thing called a sub-dermal governor on him. She sold him to another enemy and it took the kids a while to summon me. I think he’s mad I wasn’t there to keep him from being captured in the first place..."

"That’s not why he’s mad." Ma-ti blurted suddenly and everyone turned to face him.

"You know something!" Cap could not quite keep the accusation out of his tone.

Ma-ti shook his head and looked at his feet, fingering the feather he wore on his arm. Finally, he looked up and blurted. "I do not know! I do not want to know!"

"Ma-ti," the hero said in a perfect imitation of the tone Wheeler often used when frustrated with the youngest member of the team. This broke the kid completely and he buried his face in his hands, sobbing. Sighing, Cap wrapped his friend into a hug. "I'm sorry," the man said.

"Plunder did something," Ma-ti said wiping his eyes. "That day, we had to wait so Souchie would be able to see the remote to knock it away. Kwame told me to check on Wheeler around sunrise. I do not know what happened because he shut me out so fast, but I know he was ashamed... really ashamed."

"About what?" Gi asked her friend.

Ma-ti only shrugged helplessly. "I told you that I do not know."

Emma had listened to this conversation with a frown on her face. Now she spoke, "I have visions and with Wheeler I got a bed and a monster... not a man... but its possible that’s how he sees this Plunder person. The Monster had its arms around him. I could not make sense of it, but now I think I’ve figured it out."

"Figured what out?" Cap growled. "I wish someone would explain it to me. I need to recharge soon, but I can’t just leave things the way they are."

Emma sighed heavily. "It’s possible... I mean it's always a bit of guesswork with my powers so I am not really sure. However, it is possible that this Plunder... raped your friend."

The teens recoiled as if slapped and Cap blurted. "No, he would have told us."

Linka suddenly blurted out, "No, Cap, he wouldn’t have. Wheeler doesn’t like people to know when he’s not strong.” The young Russian girl burst into tears. "It's all my fault! We'd had a fight and he took off and it is my fault."

"No, it isn’t," Cap said grimly. “If I ever get a hold of Plunder again, I'm going to make him wish he had never been born. Is that why Wheeler’s mad at me?"

Ma-ti spoke four words in a grim voice. "The power is yours."

Cap groaned, while the members of Mutant X and the girl they were taking in all looked confused. "What does that mean?" Julia asked and Cap shook his head.

"It's what I say when I give them their power back when I recharge. I think I understand what to do."

He leaped into the air, flying after the redhead."

The moment he was out of sight of the others, Wheeler had ran. He ran until his side hurt and then kept running, only vaguely aware of the sobs that had begun to come.

He couldn’t stand hearing Cap say “The power is yours,” and if he heard it one more time, it would make him scream. It was a lie, a complete and total lie! If the power truly was his, he would have been able to stop what Plunder had done.

Wheeler finally had to stop his headlong plunge through the forest. Even a feral could only go at top speed for so long.

He collapsed under a white-barked tree and pulled his knees to his chest. He swiped at his eyes, angry that he was crying. But lately, he seemed to cry when he ran, trying to escape the memory of the night he had spent in Plunder’s bed.

He had tried so hard to fight the older man off. He had almost succeeded before Plunder had turned the governor on. Wheeler had been only partly-conscious when the older man had begun to take their clothes off.

Still, he had fought weakly, to no avail. In the end, he had let himself go limp. His mind retreated inside to try to block it out. No matter how hard he had tried, he hadn’t been able to completely block it. On some level, he had been all too aware of what Plunder had done to him.

"Wheeler?" Cap landed in front of him. "I know you don’t believe me, but it’s going to be alright. You’re going to be alright.”

Wheeler blinked at him. "Don’t you have to go recharge?"

"Later. Right now, you need me to be here." Cap sat down next to the teen. "The power... is yours," he said it slowly and without the emphasis that would make him vanish.

Wheeler’s head snapped up. "Liar!"

"No, it's the truth!"

"You fucking liar!" Cap wasn’t really surprised when the Feral leapt at him, snarling in rage. He caught the boy in his arms and held him. Wheeler yelled as pounded on the superhero. "I DIDN’T HAVE ANY POWER! I DIDN’T HAVE ANY! YOU KEPT TELLING US THAT IT’S OURS, BUT IT’S NOT! AND YOU WEREN’T THERE AND I COULDN’T STOP HIM! I COULDN’T..."

Wheeler’s voice broke into a wail. He stopped pounding and instead clung to the man as a child would. "It’s okay," Cap said softly. "It may not feel like it right now, but it’s going to be okay."

They stayed like that for a long time, with Wheeler sobbing helplessly as Cap held him in his arms. Wheeler finally hiccuped himself into silence. "I’m sorry."

"No, I am sorry," Cap said into the boy’s hair. "I’m sorry I wasn’t there and that I am not as strong as you needed me to be. I want you to know something. No one can take your power away from you. It’s here," he tapped Wheeler's chest with one finger. "...and here," he kissed Wheeler's forehead. "Plunder can’t take it from you. Maybe one day, you will believe that. But please, don’t shut your friends out."

"I want to go home," Wheeler muttered. He reached back and touched the governor that was still in him. Cap had managed to turn it off when he had rescued Wheeler from Plunder, but it still needed to be removed.

"I can take you to the others, but I am afraid I do need to recharge." Cap held out his arms. Wheeler let himself be hugged, which Cap took as a good sign.

They returned to the rest of the group. "Wheeler?" Gi said.

"I'm alright," he told her, trying for a gentle smile. It wobbled, but he managed it. "Okay, I'm not. But I will be. I need to tell you all something. Plunder... when he had me, he turned the governor on and he left it on until... I couldn’t see straight and then he... raped me."

The other Planeteers caught him as he burst into tears again. They huddled together in a mass of compassion and understanding. After a few minutes, Wheeler looked up at the hero. He nodded once with tear-filled eyes.

"The power is YOURS!" Cap said the words firmly and vanished, leaving behind the five lights that made their way to the rings on the Planeteers' fingers.

Adam approached the teens. "Wheeler, there’s a place in the underground for you as well."

Wheeler shook his head. "I can’t leave my friends. I need them."

"I understand," Adam said smiling. "How about I take that governour out for you?"

"C-can you?" Wheeler stammered. "I hate it. I hate having it in me. It reminds me of... things."

"I can, back at Sanctuary, our home."

Adam held his hand out. After a moment, Wheeler held his out and the two shook hands.

One month later...

Wheeler sat at the high tide mark on the west beach of Hope Island watching the sunset. The wound on the back of his neck had healed completely and other wounds, although harder to see, had also begun to close.

He spent a lot of time talking to Gaia, who never judged him. She just listened.

The others also listened and sometimes Wheeler opened up to them about his feelings about what had happened. They knew the truth now, even that Wheeler had an orgasm during the assault.

The hardest thing to admit was that his own body had betrayed him. He had asked Gaia why rape existed and she had responded sadly, "Humans invented rape. I gave them free will and that’s one of the things they did with it. I am unable to change it."

Wheeler thought about that sometimes, about free will and the power that was truly yours, the power no one could take away from you. He was beginning to actually believe it.

A soft footstep made him look up and smile. Linka sat down beside him. "Did I tell you I am sorry we argued that day?"

"Linka, don’t do that. Don’t blame yourself. It’s not your fault, I never ever blamed you." Wheeler leaned his head on her shoulder and she put an arm around him. "I blamed myself for running away. For not trusting you guys with my secret sooner. For not being strong enough to fight the drug that Blight shot into me."

"None of that was your fault." Linka couldn’t help the tears that sprang to her eyes.

"I know that now. It was easier to blame myself than the person who was really responsible. Nothing justifies what Plunder did to me. One day, Linka, I will have vengeance. It might not be from my hand. It might not be from your hand or any of the others, but one day he will know pain."

Wheeler said this with certainty. He was getting better and the sun was going down on what Plunder had done to him. He was going to be alright. It would take a lot of time and a lot of love from his friends, but he had plenty of both.

The end


End file.
